Common Data Elements for COVID-19 Neuroimaging: A GCS-NeuroCOVID Proposal

Excerpt

Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) present with a broad spectrum of neurological disorders whose features have been described in numerous reports since the beginning of the global pandemic [1‐5]. The incidence and prevalence of these disorders range from 3.5% to 84% among patients with COVID-19 [2, 5, 6], with neurological symptoms ranging from mild (e.g., anosmia) to severe (e.g., encephalopathy, stroke) [1, 3]. A global community of researchers and clinicians has mobilized in an effort to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying neurological injury in patients with COVID-19. These mechanisms include hypoxia [7], inflammation [3], hypercoagulability [3], endothelial infection by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [8], autoimmunity, and possibly encephalitis due to direct viral infection of the central nervous system by SARS-CoV-2 [9]. However, fundamental questions about pathophysiology and mechanisms of recovery remain, hampering our ability to diagnose, prognosticate, and treat patients with neurological disorders associated with COVID-19. …